Nearly an entire day later, I finish asking all the questions I have. Sadly, I don’t get all that much else out of the cube. When it comes to the blueprints for the Anti-System Array, the design and runes are all far too complex for me to understand let alone recreate. I still made a rough copy with my light magic to study later though. Maybe I will understand better once I reach Class 4.

  I did ask the projection a few things about the Demon Lords and Heroes of the past, and to my surprise, got some interesting info. It turns out that the very first leader of the rebellion against The System was the Demon Lord of the time. That truly shocked the rest of the team and it took a moment to calm them down. It seems that the Demon Lord of the time was rather angry with what The System’s creator was trying to do and the chaos that was later caused by The System’s initialization.

  The more I asked the more questions I had, but the projection was not the most forthcoming with the information it did have. I get the feeling that it is keeping things from me for some reason.

  As a final question I tried to learn what it was exactly that The System’s creator was doing that required the Grand Curse to be cast, but suspiciously the projection claimed the data was deleted. My money is on Lucadon being the culprit, but I can’t imagine why they would keep this information from me. I am also unsure how they managed to erase that information when I’m supposed to be the damn owner of this place.

  Regardless, I got everything I could out of the cube projection thingy and needed to figure out what to do next.

  “So, what now?” Sitting outside of the cube, Sera looks a little vacant as she asks me our next steps. She must be exhausted after all the surprises today. Unfortunately for her I do in fact have plans, ones that involve her.

  “Now, you ascend. The catalyst you have been working on should be ready now.” My statement makes the exhausted look on her face turn a tad fearful. I am not some evil corporate overlord, don’t look at me like that! You will have time off once you are done.

  Normally it takes longer to make a catalyst for ascension, but that is only if you are going by the crazy brute force method I have been using. In fact, most people spend their time crafting their catalyst even before they are ready to ascend. Speedrunning everything like I did is more or less unheard of.

  Turning to the other half of our group I make sure they don’t get any funny ideas. “Boys, stay here. We will take Sera to the bathroom in the barracks so she can ascend. No peeking.” Ascending is generally done in the nude due to the whole body shifting to accommodate one’s magic, and that can often end up messy. Obviously such an act should be done in private.

  “Oh come on. What do you take us for?” Agera crosses his arms grumpily at the accusation and Randall just shakes his head. Clearly neither of them would ever do such a thing, but I feel the need to mess with them anyway.

  “Boys. That is what I take you for.” And with that incredibly sound argument, Agera loses his ability to say anything else. A teasing smile makes its way on my face as I lead a slightly red faced Sera to the bathroom.

  After Alice, Sera and I enter the showers, I look over our future Class 2 mind mage and decide that I should try and learn a few things while I can. Never miss a chance to do some testing. I have never had a chance to watch someone else ascend, since Alice insists on ascending with me, so this is a good opportunity. “First things first, Sera I would recommend using that mental shielding spell you made when we fought the monkeys.”

  Ascending is rather painful as you are breaking past the limits of your soul and letting your body become, at least in part, magic. Since I don’t have the same powers as The System, I can’t use mind magic - or I guess it is dream magic if the cube was telling the truth - to dull the pain of the process. I explain all this to Sera as best I can, and she looks rather relieved that she can protect herself from the worst of it. Though, I have to make one thing clear. “It will still hurt, but using the spell should keep the pain to a minimum.”

  As I contemplate all the things I want to look into, I realize that maintaining the spell during the ascension would be rather difficult a feat for a Class 1 mage. I should try to find a way around that. “Hey, Sera. You mind if I take a look at your mana core?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to see if I can copy the mental shielding spell into the Anti-System Rings, but more than that I want to see if I can replicate the spell another way.” After explaining the possibility of her failing to keep up the spell while ascending, Sera quickly agrees to my proposal, clearly not happy with the idea of accidentally dropping the spell at the wrong time.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  The idea I had is to project the mana pathways into the air around her with my light magic acting as a conduit. It will be good practice for when I try to materialize my own magic for my own ascension to Class 4. It is mainly just a fun experiment though.

  However, thinking about it, I do think getting a good look at her mana channels might help me learn more about her [Detect Lie] passive skill. Hmm, maybe I should call them augments instead as they are not skills and modify the body directly? I think I like that.

  Pointless thoughts of terminology aside, since the augment is not a part of her Mana Core I will need a full scan of her body to get a better idea of the magic pathways that power it. If I can figure it out, I can even get the same power for Prim, which would be incredibly useful. Not that I see any reason to tell Sera such things.

  With Sera’s approval I start running my mana through her core and body to study her magic on a deeper level. From the looks of it the mental shielding spell is rather complex, I am honestly amazed that she crafted something like this on the fly. Even with the other spells she has that are somewhat similar, it is a show of her clear talent with mind magic.

  The more I study the shape of her spells the more I realize that mind magic is a lot more complicated than other types of magic. The construction of the nodes in the rune for the mental shield seem to follow slightly different rules than the magic I use.

  Both Light Magic and Golemancy both work on different frameworks and it seems that that holds true for other forms of magic and not just my own. I have not had the chance to look over other people’s Mana Cores in such detail before so the whole thing is quite fascinating. So many things to consider just from a single look!

  About half an hour later I end the inspection, having finished copying a detailed map of her core and the rune for the mental shield. The passive spell to detect lies however seemed to evade my grasp. I couldn’t find a single trace of it connecting to her Mana Core or any of the mana pathways in her body that would indicate the rune’s location. I will need to compare the scan I recorded with a new one after her ascension to test a few theories.

  Focusing on the air in the room, I begin to trace the pathways and node structures with my light magic. lines of what is normally my soft white light slowly begin to tint a pale purple the closer I get to completing the rune, and the beauty of the design shines brightly as it fills the space. Once the rune is complete I start to run more and more mana through it in an attempt to anchor the spell in the space around us.

  The rune starts to quiver and bend as it looks close to shattering. Damn, the thing refuses to anchor. I narrow my eyes, going over every possible problem I can see with my light magic and my mana senses. Something is interfering with the rune's mana, rejecting it. It is like trying to fit a square block in a circular hole, or maybe like magnets repelling each other? Eh, the metaphor is not important.

  You can etch runes into a physical object so why can’t I do the same with space itself? I glare harder at the rune as I paint over my vision with Light Magic, tracing the flow of mana. Perhaps… I think the ambient mana and the reality of the world are fighting against it. I try and think, but it is hard to devise a way to clean the space of mana without disrupting the rune I already made. But what can I do?

  Groaning to myself, I fail to find any possible solution until everything just clicks.

  “Ah! Qi and mana seem to repel each other, or at least the threads that generated them in my soul act that way. That might work!” Focusing on the space itself, I reach out under the confused looks from Alice and the awed looks from Sera. Pulling from deep inside my body I flood the room with Qi. I notice Sera’s eyes change from awe to extreme confusion at my use of Qi but decide against saying anything. Focus.

  The mana in the room is quickly pushed out thanks to my Qi, and with a now sterile workspace, I pull on the Reality of the space and carve the rune into it with my own Reality. Interesting, hehehe, it works. I honestly was just taking a shot in the dark here, In all likelihood I could have blown us up instead.

  Alice’s eyes narrow on me as I think these things to myself, but I say nothing here as well. As long as I don’t admit to doing dangerous experiments, she can’t scold me for them. Whether that actually holds true or not is something I prefer not to think about. As I finish carving the rune and let the Qi dissipate the mana rushes in to fill the space like air filling a vacuum.

  Now, floating in the air before us is what looks like a shimmering constellation distorting reality in the shape of a rune, the light refracting off it like a heat haze. A wicked smile forms on my face in the presence of my work. Grinning like a mad woman, I watch as the mana begins to power the rune, and I can see the effects immediately.

  While they have no effect on Alice or myself, Sera is a different story. The mana seeps into her mind and throws up the same wall that her own spell had. “Woah.” Sera seems rather shocked to see me using what should be a spell only a mental mage should be able to use. Her eyes glittering as she stares into the floating rune.

  Smiling smugly I place my hands on my hips and puff out my chest at the accomplishment. Normally you can only make runes for lesser versions of a spell and they cost far more mana to run, but this method seems to let me use other people’s magic! Granted, doing so would require me to clean an area of mana and build the rune which is a painstaking process. That, and I doubt I could do this with anything more complicated than a basic Class 1 spell for now. So… not something I can do on the fly.

  “There, now you can ascend without trying to keep the spell active yourself.”

  Sera’s shock and awe only lasts for a little while longer before she seems to come back to what she sensed earlier. “That is amazing, but… how did you use Qi?”